Relics

by Pip Vaughan-Hughes

  Anna had put on a long, tight-sleeved tunic of deep-blue silk and drawn a sleeveless surcoat of deep red over it. Her back was turned and when she turned back to me I gasped. I had never seen her attired as a woman, and I had never seen a woman attired as she was now. The fine ladies of Balecester had gone about like columns of drapery: elegant, modest sometimes, and often severe. But Anna was revealed as much as she was hid, at least from throat to waist. She was pushing her hair into a net of golden threads. Seeing me stare, she pouted fetchingly and twisted so that the loose folds of tunic and surcoat swirled around her legs.

  'Do you like it?' she asked. I nodded. 'Venetian - the very latest style. So says de Montalhac, anyway. He picked it up in Dublin, I believe. It fits, doesn't it?' I nodded again. 'For heaven's sake, Petroc. You look thunderstruck. Have you never seen a lady before?'

  'In truth, I never did see a lady before this moment,' I said at last.

  She had thrown a green cloak around her shoulders and fastened the jewelled clasp across her breast, drawing it close. Now she picked up her sword-belt, buckled it and slung it over her left shoulder so that the point of the sword hung mid-way down her thigh. Then she swung her heavy man's cloak around her. The sword was hidden from sight.

  'Can I wear your hood?' she asked. You can have my hat. And since I am, at long last, one of the gentler sex, you can carry my satchel as well.'

  With the hood over her head, clasped tight beneath her chin, she was all but masked. I put on the green hat, feeling a little ridiculous. 'If you are ready, we had better go,' I said.

  We crept back across the aisle and peered round the main door. There was no one in the square, so we slithered out and hurried into the shadows. There was no light yet in the sky, no false dawn. We still had time.

  We walked as before, slipping from shadow to shadow, slinking over cross-streets, keeping silent. I calculated that we had only a little way to go. I saw St Pierre before us, and surely that must be the bulk of the Great Gate away in the distance? I took Anna's hand and quickened my pace.

  We crossed over another street and heard loud voices and singing not so far away. Anna squeezed my hand. 'That's good,' I muttered. 'They will draw the Watch.'

  We had reached the next line of buildings when Anna tripped over something and cursed softly. From the doorway of the shuttered house came a loud rasping and scuffling. I pulled Anna to me and was about to set off running, believing we had disturbed a dog or worse, a sleeping pig, when a voice, the slur of Bristol made thicker with drink, lashed out of the darkness.

  'Bloodworm!'

  The bowman from the wharf stepped out. The rasping had been the iron-bound haft of his axe scraping on the doorstep. Now he clasped it and half-drew it from his belt. His other hand was on his misericorde dagger. Whatever entertainment the night had held for him had not improved his visage. Behind him another form stepped out, and another.

  'I've my mates with me now, little boy, and you have only your tart.'

  "What is it, Benno?' The second man was a bowman too from his leather wrist-guards. He wore a short-sword. The third man had a nail-studded cudgel already swinging in his hands.

  'It's the little foreign sodomite who I was telling you about. And a whore. You little prick! Where are your lovely friends now, eh?'

  'I don't know what you mean,' I said. My mouth was bone-dry. I felt Anna's hand slip from mine.

  You do. You know what I mean,' said the bowman. 'I mean this.' And he pulled axe and dagger from his belt with an apelike jerk. The other man's sword scraped from its sheath. Not oiled for a spell, I thought, with a part of my mind that seemed already to be leaving my body. The other part had, it seemed, taken over, and I found I was holding Thorn against my leg as I had earlier, when Anna had played her game with me. Then I was entirely there again. I saw that Benno wore a thick old leather jerkin and some sort of padded under-tunic. His mate with the sword wore a sheepskin surcoat. The third man had a mailed hood pushed down around his neck.

  'Come on then, you little shit,' croaked Benno.

  'Anna, run for the boat,' I yelled, and, tearing my cloak from my shoulders, wrapped it around my left arm with a couple of flicks. But Anna did not run.

  'Leave us be, filth,' she said, and her voice was as cold as the Sea of Darkness.

  'Ho ho!' cackled the man with the sword. 'Hark to your mouth! When we're done with your precious little customer I'll put that mouth to use, darling.'

  Benno rolled his shoulders and drew a deep breath. It was coming. I settled myself on my feet and brought Thorn up, loose at the end of a straight arm, as Rassoul had taught me.

  'Run, Anna!'

  But it was too late. The three stepped towards us in one movement. With a sudden shout, Benno swung his axe. I stepped back and stooped to get inside his reach. And then the axe was no longer in his hand, but jumping away down the cobblestones. Pale light seemed to shoot out of his throat, but it was Anna's sword, and she held him upright on its tip as the blood poured down the blade and onto her hand. Then she jerked it out and Benno's life hissed wetly out of the hole and away into the darkness above us. He tottered, and sat down suddenly on his arse. Then he was on his back, his eyes as blind as boiled eggs. His friends stopped. Everything stopped.

  The tart's killed Benno,' whined the cudgel-man.

  'Fuck!' screamed the man with the sword, and leaped at us. Perhaps he was going for Anna, perhaps for me, but she stepped wide and he rammed me with his shoulder, spinning me round. He had his balance again, and the point of his sword was up and pointing at my chest. He stamped.

  'Ha!' he yelled, and stamped again. He meant to back me against the wall and skewer me there. He lunged, and I brought up my cloak-wrapped arm like a shield. The blade caught in its folds and, twisting, I trapped it. He tried to tug it out, his eyes on Thorn, pointed now at his face, just out of my reach. With his free hand he tried to grab the blade, but I saw his move and lashed out. The blade bit between two fingers and parted his hand almost to the wrist-bone. He howled, and threw himself back, trying again to free his sword. He was strong, but the blade must have been notched, for it was held fast by the cloth. I felt the full weight of him through the sword lashed to my arm, and felt his balance go. I swung with all my might, and he staggered sideways and crashed into the wall. He let go his sword, but too late. I punched Thorn up under his breast-bone, and hit him with the length of my body. The breath burst from him, rotting teeth and rotten wine, and the stink of his sheepskin like a cloud around my face. I felt his chest convulse once, twice, and rammed the knife in harder. I wanted this to end. I wanted him to end. And with another heave he died, and slumped against me. I tugged on Thorn but the blade was stuck fast, so I stepped back and let him crash to the ground. As I stooped to take his sword I heard the scuffling of feet behind me, and a guttural curse.

  Anna and the cudgel-man were circling each other in the middle of the street, some way away. She had thrown off her cloak. The man was scared, but fear was leaving him, and something like murderous amusement was taking over. I saw that he had picked up Benno's misericorde, and held it in his left hand. He seemed oblivious to me and to his friend. Anna's face was a blank. I dared not move, in case I distracted her attention. She held her sword stiff and steady. Every now and again she gave the end a flick. But I saw that her feet were in danger of being wound up in the hem of her tunic. She knew it too, for she kept her steps small and precise. The cudgel-man, though, was growing brave. He began feinting at her, now with the cudgel, now the knife, making her step back and risk a fall. All at once she seemed to decide that this must end. Waiting for a feint with the knife, she stepped to the side and flicked again with her blade. The knife-arm went limp and the man cursed and stepped backwards. Anna shifted her grip and lunged, but too far: her tunic caught at last and she sprawled.

  But she still held the sword, and the man was hurt. He was not quick enough and she rose to one knee, the blade up again and pointing. And then another shape erupted from the da
rk side street and hurtled into the cudgel-man, who one instant was choosing his blow and the next was flat on his back. I was there in another instant, and Anna behind me, but by that time the rescuer from the shadows had stuck his thick, narrow knife through the cudgel-man's eye.

  I stepped back. Anna's sword was up and ready for the stranger, who rose to his feet after working his knife back out of the dead man's skull. He wore a plain black surcoat and a hooded cape. The hood was up. He wiped the dagger on the cudgel-man's shirt.

  'Turn around, if you please, friend,' said Anna, her voice as empty of friendship as the cudgel-man's body was of life.

  'Certainly, my lady,' said the Northerner.

  He straightened up and turned to face us, dagger carelessly dangled from loose fingers. Then he dropped it.

  'For fuck's sake!' he said, and pushed back the hood with both hands.

  'For . . .' he started to say again, but by that time I had him round the waist and was laughing and sobbing in turn.

  When at last I was able to speak, it was to Anna.

  'My love,' I said, Will has come back from the dead to save us: my dear friend Will.'

  Will and I stood there, beyond speech, deaf to the sounds of the world. Not so Anna, to whom my friend was nothing more than a name from a long tale. She bent down and retrieved Will's dagger, pushing the hilt briskly back into his palm.

  'Put your weapons away, boys,' she snapped.

  I looked down at the corpse at my feet. Not much blood had flowed from his wound - the thrust had killed him outright -but the sight of one pale eye staring up beside a dark pool where its twin should be brought my own senses back. Will was staring at the other two corpses. I tottered over to the man I had killed. His lips were drawn back, and through a sheen of black blood his teeth glimmered yellow. I felt my gorge rise. Anna was looking around at the other two corpses. 'Drop that,' she ordered, pointing to the sword which dangled in my limp hand. Her own sword was already back in hiding beneath her cloak. 'There are three men dead, and we must not be here when they are discovered. Come now!' And she grabbed me by the elbows and shook hard.

  We'll drag this one into the doorway over there, next to his mate,' she said briskly. I didn't argue, and Will and I grabbed an ankle apiece. I could not help staring, a stupid grin on my face despite the horror all around, at my friend. Short minutes ago he had been as dead to me as the corpse we now hauled, skull bouncing on stone, over to where Benno lay. There was blood here, to be sure. We dumped the cudgel-man across Benno. I bent over the crumpled swordsman and pulled at Thorn. I had to put my foot on his chest and wrench the blade out. When I stood up again, Anna and Will were looking at the corpses as if they were cabbages on a market stand. 'If we hew at this fellow with the other's axe, it might seem as if they killed each other,' Will said, as if discussing a grammatical point in the Epistles. Anna was nodding thoughtfully. Then we heard footsteps and voices, and above us a rusty shutter was wrestled open.

  'Leave them!' I had found my voice. 'Hurry, for God's sake -we'll be seen.'

  She grabbed my hand. And you,' she said, turning to Will. 'Stay if you like or come with us to the river, but come now!'

  I turned to Will. He cocked his head towards the fast-approaching voices. Then his face broke into the wolfish grin I remembered so well.

  'The river? Let's run, then,' he said, and without another word took off down the street. Anna shoved her satchel at me. 'And there,' she hissed, pointing to where her absurd green hat lay next to the dead swordsman. I snatched it up and then we were chasing Will pell-mell along the cobbles. He ducked into another side street, still running, and we followed. Will knew his way through the maze of the city, and cut up and down three more alleys. Anna ran alongside me, her clothes hitched up around her knees. All too soon I felt my chest tighten and my limbs grow heavy. From Anna's tight grimace I knew she was flagging too. We had spent too long cramped aboard the Cormaran. Our limbs had all but withered on our bodies. I knew that, very soon, I would be able to run no further. Then Will ducked out of sight again, and following, we almost ran into him. He had stopped and was peering round a corner.

  Looking over his shoulder, I saw we had reached a broad street at the end of which, and very near, a gate rose against the lightening sky.

  'The Porte Saint Eloi,' whispered Will. 'It will be opening in a minute or so. We'll walk through nice and quietly. You two are the lord and lady, and I'm your bodyguard, just behind you with my head down. If they hail us, perhaps the lady—' and he nodded politely at Anna,'—should answer. And cover yourself up, Patch. You're a mite bloody.'

  I had no idea how far we had just run, but there were no sounds of pursuit. The bodies had surely been discovered by now, though, and it would be to the gates that the Watch would first send word. We had to slip through before that happened. I looked down at myself. Dimitri would curse me for sure when he saw what I had done to my tunic. I wrapped myself in my cloak, shuddering as the blood-dampened clothing pressed against my skin. I still had Anna's hat scrunched in my fist. I hid it away in the satchel. Anna did not look like one who had just run for her life through strange alleyways. Her cheeks were alive with colour, but when she dropped the hem of her robe and drew herself up I almost gasped at the way the princess emerged from the panting fugitive. She unclasped her hood and pushed it back. Gold mesh shone against black hair. I doubted, all of a sudden, that if anyone had witnessed the fight, they would believe that this regal creature could have been within a mile of such vulgar goings-on. I hoped I looked like enough of a gentleman to be her escort. I doubted it. And Will: Will was the perfect cutthroat. I studied him for a moment. He wore a hood with a long, trailing point that hung far down his back. His black surcoat was unadorned. He wore it over a long, leather cuirass the colour of old blood that hung down to his knees. Muddy high-boots were drawn over undyed wool hose.

  What do you say, Patch?' he asked, feeling my eyes upon him.

  I grabbed the front of his surcoat and shook it gently. You are a soldier,' I said, wondering.

  'I am,' he said. 'And a sergeant-at-arms, no less. My company is the black boar, under Sir Andrew Hardie.'

  'I thought you were dead, Will!' I blurted.

  Well, I knew you must be.' He reached out and prodded me in the stomach. 'Real enough, though,' he said. When Kervezey . . . But let's wait. I am a stranger to your lady, and that must be remedied.' He turned to Anna, and made a perfect courtier's bow that sent his hood flopping down over his eyes.

  Anna looked at me over Will's back, her eyebrows high arches of bemused enquiry.

  Will,' I said, before he could open his mouth, 'This is Anna Doukaina Komnena, Princess Royal, niece of the Emperor John Doukas of Byzantium.'

  He straightened up with a jerk and looked from Anna to me and back again, his face a study in bemusement.

  'Oh, come on, Patch, I never . . .' he started, but a sound from the street behind us cut him off. There were shouts, a creaking and groaning, thuds.

  Anna peeped around the corner. 'The gates are open,' she said.

  'Right,' I said. They would hang us all three times over while we explained everything to each other. Anna, your cloak. Straighten your tunic. Can you see any blood on me? Good. Will, two paces behind, I think, don't you?'

  'Right you are,' said Will. 'Give me that bag, Patch. Chin up, and act the nobleman, for Jesus' sake.'

  I hooked my arm through Anna's and we stepped out into the wide street. It was decidedly lighter now, and the sky had cleared. The last stars were burning fiercely overhead, but a glow was creeping in from the east. I did raise my chin and tried to look regal. Beside me, Anna paced calmly. Her face was an utter blank. I could hear Will pad along behind us.

  The gate was close. It was set in a slender tower in the city's curtain wall, a minor entryway but still guarded, I saw, by three or four helmeted men armed with halberds. A trickle of folk were already seeping in, pushing carts or staggering under sacks and bales, traders hoping to steal a march o
n the competition. There seemed to be no one leaving. There were four guards, I saw, sleepy and leaning on their halberds. They paid little heed to the traders, but they noticed us. The tallest straightened and nudged his fellows. I heard our shoes scrape, tap, scrape on the stones. Perhaps we could fight our way through . . . but these men were armoured. I saw mail shirts and leggings. I chewed on the inside of my cheek and prayed that I looked lordly.

  As we reached the gate, the tallest guard, whom I took to be the sergeant, shouldered his halberd and stepped towards us.

  'Good morrow to you, my lord, my lady,' he said. 'It is an early morning to be setting off, to be sure.'

  'Early it is, but we are late,' I said, in the best French I could muster, looking at the soldier down my nose. I am decieving no one, I thought wildly to myself. And indeed the guard's look seemed to sharpen.

  Just as I thought his fingers were tightening on his pikestaff, Anna swept off her hood, revealing her hair in its golden prison. In the half-dawn her skin was very white.

  'Do they presume to bandy words with you, my lord?' she asked me, turning her head deliberately from the guards.

  'So it seems,' I said. Anna's gaze was drilling into me. I understood what was required.

  We have no time to waste with fools,' I barked. 'You will bow down before the Princess Doukaina Komnena, and keep your eyes on the ground where they belong as we pass by.'

  The sergeant stared, slack-jawed, at Anna. She did not flinch, but drew her right hand slowly from her cloak. For a horrible moment I thought she was drawing her sword. But instead she held out her hand to the man. On her third finger, huge and heavy, was a ring I had never seen before. The man gawped at it, and dropped to his knees with a crunch of chain-mail. The others, watching, followed suit.